Secret of the Red Spot

by Eando Binder

  Jim Sanderson spoke up as Bruce checked his flight circuits. “I hear from the grapevine that we’ve got a million fighting ships committed to this battle, plus at least a quarter-million Venusian ships.”

  “And I hear,” put in Barney Blight, “that the Ginzies have three million ships against us.”

  “Nice odds,” drawled big Kirk Lawson. “If it was five to one, I’d begin to worry.”

  “Pipe down, all of you,” said Bruce curtly. “Fill your mind with that stuff and you’ll give up before you start. Just tell yourself to give ’em hell.”

  It was in that tense, grim mood that Bruce and his three copilots sped their ship away when the zero hour came. To the left and right Bruce could see row on row of ships matching his speed. Small blazers, staunch crushers, and huge macroships, line after line. Further in the distance winked the rocket flares of other combined fleets, in a separate galaxy.

  Earth’s wars in the past shrank to insignificant skirmishes in comparison. The World Wars on Earth itself had never had as many jet planes in action in all their struggles as this one battle and its myriad of spaceships. The early space wars between worlds had never mounted more than a few thousand warships at a time.

  Here in the 25th century everything was in the multi-mega range—millions upon millions of ships, guns, and men. The mighty industrial complexes of four worlds were churning out war material at a fantastic rate. And now two great armadas were about to clash.

  The Earth Navy did not really consider it a surprise attack. Sensitive long-range detectors of the Martians had warned them of the massing of ships in time to mass their own. It was a challenge, a bold bid, a defiance of Martian might. Anyway, it had to be done before the enemy had plugged every niche in the outer-planet blockade. If the Martians could be routed, rather than decimated, it would still be victory.

  The one advantage the Earth forces had was in their attack formation, which allowed them to stab at the Martian fleet from various directions, while the defenders could only sit and wait.

  The first wave of Earth warships struck heavily at the sunward flank of the Martians. When reinforcements were rushed there, the Earth forces struck at a newly weakened point. It was thrust and jab, trying to find a breakthrough in the massed Martian formation.

  Bruce, of course, could not tell how the battle was going, confined to his narrow sector. His Fourth Fleet had combined with other units into a sizeable force that hammered at the outer edges of the Martian armada, inflicting as many ship casualties as they could.

  Once again Bruce’s eyes beheld carnage beyond description. Exploding ships, enormous balls of sparkles, broken debris, bodies hurled into space to burst and freeze. It was, however, less sickening than Earthly battlefields had been with all their spilled blood and maimed bodies and tortured screams. Space death was mercifully quick, when it came.

  Sharp orders came through from the armada’s high command at times, calling for withdrawal and regrouping to make up for lost ships. Then, after a nerve-wracking wait, another order to attack. The Earth admirals were keeping a tight attack pattern with superb skill, holding losses to a minimum. Like harassing lances, the navy units were biting at the big Martian bear from all sides, inflicting wounds.

  Hour after hour the battle went on. There could be no such thing as complete withdrawal to attack another day. Units were called out in orderly sequence for a respite in which to eat, drink, and snatch an hour’s sleep. But then, taking the standard psycho-energizing pills that could overcome fatigue, back went the crew and ship into the fray.

  Bruce knew he could be no hero in this gigantic confrontation. This was no skirmish at an Asteroid outpost. This was a bruising clash of two giants made up of warship swarms that filled all space within reach of the eye.

  Chapter 13

  Bruce at times saw Jupiter shining in his viewscreen, a brilliant scintillating star only 300 million miles away. Even its four large moons—so far held by Earth—could be easily seen with the naked eye. Bruce looked at it yearningly. That’s where he wanted to go, eventually. That’s where Dora and Dr. Kent waited in unknown duress. That’s where a secret Martian war base lay like a spider in its lair, waiting to leap forth in total surprise.

  Bruce shook his head. Between him and that bright star lay the bulwark of the Martian fleet, a steel wall of moving parts. Unless that rampart of space were broken apart, reaching Jupiter was only a dream.

  Bruce took savage joy in outmaneuvering Martian craft that he met during attacks, and blasting them to oblivion when he gave the fire order. He had already chalked up three Martian macroships—personally evening the odds they were up against—not to mention dozens of puny blazers and crushers that tried to ring him.

  But what did it all mean in the larger battle? How were the other Earth contingents faring? Was there any sign of the Martians weakening or losing too many ships? It was all a blank unknown and a confusion of wheeling ships all over the visible sky.

  But a dazed eternity later, Admiral Jordan’s voice rang loudly and triumphantly from the intercom: “Hear this…and cheer! We’ve succeeded in splitting the Martian fleet into two portions. We can now hold off one and concentrate our attack on cutting the other to pieces. On to victory, men!”

  The three copilots broke out into lusty cheers. Bruce was too tired to join them and only grinned wanly. Staring out at the battle scene, he suddenly jerked. “Martian blazer coming straight at us—trying to ram us!”

  Barely in time, their big macroship swung its tail aside as the small Martian ship whizzed by. Before it could swing around for another try, proton-guns boomed and blew it into subatomic particles.

  “That was crazy,” gasped Sanderson. “Suicidal. What are the Ginzies up to?”

  “A Kamikaze attack,” said Bruce in growing horror, sweeping his viewscreen all over and seeing other Earth ships breaking apart as small Martian blazers rammed into them like torpedoes. “In World War Two on Earth, long ago, the Japanese used suicide planes to knock out American warships. The Martians are switching to the same tactics. And trading one little blazer for a big macro-ship or crusher is a terrific bargain—for them.”

  Obviously, the entire Martian fleet had been ordered to engage in this devastating maneuver. Bruce could see Earth’s macroships and crushers winking into brilliant explosion all around space at an appalling rate. The swift blazers in most instances could out-fly the bigger battle-wagons, avoiding their powerful guns and then smashing into them with enormous force like an oversized bomb.

  In an instant, the tide of battle turned. Now the Earth forces were on the defensive. And there was no chance of turning the tables and doing the same thing. The Earth forces were too few. By the plain fact of mathematics, only the Martians could afford to thus sacrifice warships on a one-to-one basis and still come out ahead.

  The Earth admirals had come to that conclusion already. “Withdraw,” barked the intercom imperatively. “Retreat and withdraw. Throw blazers in front of the suicide Martian ships. All units, withdraw…”

  The prompt retreat saved it from being a rout and a disaster. The Earth forces were still able to make an orderly withdrawal, disengaging themselves from the battleground area and vanishing into the big dark behind. It was a humiliating defeat, so soon after seeming victory. It once again pointed up the fact that the Martians were a formidable enemy indeed.

  Bruce almost cried in rage and frustration. That meant the Martian blockade had not been broken. When and if Earth could ever again mount an offensive to smash through was questionable. Were the outer planets closed off for the duration?

  The Avenger was among the last ships to be given its withdrawal clearance. Martians were still chasing them. Bruce easily shook off the pursuit of two macroships, but three crunchers hung on his trail like bulldogs, slowly inching closer. The Avenger’s guns managed to pick off two, but the third spurted within range of its guns and swung for a broadside.

  Bruce knew that this time the Martians with their more m
aneuverable ship had beat him to it by a shade. He felt the jar that shuddered through the whole ship, knocking him across the pilot room in a tangle with the three copilots.

  Sanderson was first on his feet. He pointed at the winking light signals on his board. “Blew out our main ion engine,” he said hoarsely. “We’re powerless. The crusher can hack our ship to bits now…”

  Another dull boom spoke of a Martian missile striking home.

  Bruce shook his dizzy sense clear. Into the intercom he yelled a time-honored phrase that had come down from the centuries—“Abandon ship! Man the life-rockets.”

  Only a small part of the thousand-man crew made it before the entire ship cracked apart under the Martian crusher’s constant gunfire. Two men at the moment were running toward Bruce, as he held open the bubble of a life-rocket. They went down as an explosion ripped open the side of the ship. In the sudden outrush of air, Bruce barely had time to leap in the life-rocket and clap shut the bubble-top. Automatic oxygen vented into the sealed space and his lungs could breathe again, gulping in air greedily. There was one more hazard as he opened up the jets and darted free of the collapsing ship: aboard the crusher, Martian gunners were now having sport knocking off lifeboats.

  To his right and left, Bruce saw life-rockets burst open like soap bubbles, casting flailing men into space. Twice a proton-beam spangled past his craft with inches to spare, as Bruce used every piloting skill he had. It was that skill only which saved him. The other lifeboats were shot down like ducks on the wing.

  Bruce alone sped away and faded into the concealing reaches of free space, far from the battlefront.

  * * * *

  Safe from Martian pursuit, Bruce shut off his jets and had a chance now to assess his situation. It didn’t look good. He turned on his life-rocket’s small radio and called for the attention of the Earth Navy. Any ship would do, within reach.

  But no answer came and Bruce realized, with cold chills down his spine, that the fleet was beyond the range of his radio’s weak signal. Nor was there any chance of catching up with them as they retreated to the Moon. His life-rocket’s fuel gauge showed a bare minimum left for cruising among nearby planetoids and for landing maneuvers on an Asteroid, if he ever reached one. A quick plotting of his course and velocity showed he would otherwise drift to the vicinity of Venus in about a year. The life-rocket only had a three days’ supply of food, water, and air. The tiny craft weren’t meant for long-range travel, only for quick short trips to a nearby safe haven. Or to keep a man alive until a ship picked him up. Neither of those possibilities was likely here in the sparsely settled Asteroids. And with the war on, most peacetime rocket-liner travel had been stopped. Outside of warships and military cargo rockets, there was little traffic in space.

  Cold fear gripped Bruce as he swung his eyes around helplessly at the silent stars, feeling trapped. What should he do, just drift on through the emptiness and hope for rescue by some passing ship? But if no ship crossed his path within three days, the life-rocket would become his coffin, floating eternally in space.

  His best bet was to search for an inhabited Asteroid. Calculating carefully as to how much fuel he could consume, Bruce spun about for one of the brighter “stars” within his vision. They were Asteroids, extraordinarily brilliant among the fainter stars because they were within a radius of a million miles.

  He had no elaborate chart of the Asteroids, such as big ships carried. He could not look up where the inhabited Asteroids were. He would have to blindly choose several and go close to find out if they held the domes and structures of mining camps or way stations where people lived.

  An hour later, orbiting over a fair-sized Asteroid, he stared down to see only bleak rock and no sign of civilization. On to the next one—no luck. To another and the same kind of luck—bad.

  The fuel gauge dial glared back at him ominously. “One more to go and that’s it,” he muttered to himself. “No chance to search any more. I’ll have to land at the next one, inhabited or not.”

  Bruce’s eyes almost strained to produce a scene of domes on the next large Asteroid, but no such vision appeared. It was barren, lifeless rock. With a grunt of dismay, Bruce used the last of his fuel to de-orbit and swing down to the surface, settling gently in the low-g field. Like many Asteroids, it was a huge misshapen rock about 10 miles in diameter. There was no soil or air or anything Earthly. No life could exist here, not even tiny bacteria. It was sterile, an orphan of space, not yet visited or explored for its possible ores.

  An ancient expression came wryly to Bruce’s mind—from the frying pan into the fire. From being a fugitive from the law to a space exile. He was marooned, like Robinson Crusoe, on an island of space. And with even less chance of a ship appearing out of the star-studded ocean of nothingness around him.

  Climbing out after putting on the life-rocket’s spacesuit, Bruce sat down on a rock, staring around with brooding eyes. He was alone, more alone than any other human being. For a moment the terrifying sensation overwhelmed him and he felt like screaming and yelling for somebody, anybody, to come and rescue him.

  Then, half-sobbing, he caught hold of his nerves and quieted down. No sense going off the deep end. He had to stick it out as long as his supplies lasted—and hope.

  Three days. No, only two days left. He had spent one day visiting the abortive Asteroids. Food and water weren’t so vital but his oxygen would run out, inexorably, in two days. Then only a corpse would sit there on the rock, staring with sightless eyes at the eternal stars.

  And how far away he now was, in terms of getting there, from Jupiter and the Red Spot. From Dora and her father.

  From the secret Martian war base that could turn the tide of political war if it were exposed.

  Exposed by whom? By a doomed human wretch sitting on a bleak planetoid in the middle of nowhere? Bruce laughed gratingly but without humor. Only a miracle, fantastic beyond belief, could save him now.

  He got up wearily and went back in the life-rocket to turn on the radio transmitter’s automatic SOS signal. It would reach a few thousand miles if by sheer chance some spaceship passed within that range. Which event was more than incredible, it was sheerly impossible…

  Then the impossible happened. A rosy flare blossomed in space and turned—turned toward his Asteroid. A ship! It had picked up his SOS. Then he saw it was a group of sleek ships with a peculiar ancient emblem on their bows—the skull-and-crossbones.

  Bruce stood still in shock. No, it couldn’t be. He waited as if paralyzed as the ships gracefully landed and the hatchway of the leading ship opened. His eyes opened wide in disbelief as he saw the tall, gaunt figure in a space-suit, with a black mustache showing in the fishbowl helmet. His picture was on every wanted-man poster in the interplanetary police stations.

  It was all some monstrous joke of fate, thought Bruce wildly. A trick of the mocking universe. Of all the people in the cosmos to come to his rescue, how could it be this one?

  Black Ace, the pirate chief!

  If Bruce was stunned, the Black Ace was even more so when he caught sight of the marooned man. He rubbed his eyes, or tried to, rubbing instead the outside of his helmet.

  “Jay Bruce?” he choked. “The man who twice out-flew me and made a fool of me?” A crooked grin began twisting his lips. “How interesting!”

  Bruce didn’t like his tone, shivering. “But how did you know me by sight?” he asked, puzzled. “We only contacted each other by radio before, during those two encounters in space.”

  “Ah, but remember that Interplanetary Routes, Inc., for whom you worked, ruined me ten years ago. At that time, in bitter resolve, I made it my business to look over the records of every employee, vowing to have revenge on any or all of them. Pictures of each person were included. The faces and names were burned into my memory.” Bruce felt the cold wave of hatred that radiated from the space buccaneer. Ten years he had nursed his grudge against the firm that had turned him from an honest man to a space outlaw. To be rescued by him
was cosmic irony. If he had a choice, Bruce would have preferred to remain exiled and alone, facing death. What he had to face at the hands of Black Ace was unknown, and perhaps more horrible.

  Putting his hands on his hips, with legs straddled, as if unconsciously copying the poses of famed maritime pirates on Earth long ago, Black Ace laughed uproariously.

  “By the great green moons,” he roared. “When I answered your SOS, I had no idea this prize would fall into my hands. Welcome, Jay Bruce. Welcome into the service of Black Ace.”

  “Service?” stammered Bruce. “You mean you’re going to force me to become a member of your cutthroat crew?”

  “Nay,” snarled Black Ace, his face suddenly leering in menace. “I mean you are my slave. You’re going to pay for twice humiliating me in space, and for merely being a member of that thieving organization that legally looted me into bankruptcy. You’ll pay, Jay Bruce…and pay…and pay…

  Chapter 14

  Where do you jump after you jump from the frying pan into the fire? Bruce couldn’t name it, but he went through it.

  After Bruce had been taken aboard Black Ace’s flagship, removing his spacesuit, the pirate chief immediately swung his hairy paw and backhanded Bruce across the face. The gaudy jeweled rings the pirate wore gouged furrows across the skin, from which blood began to drip.

  In fury, Bruce tried to lash back but two crewmen instantly leaped and grabbed his arms.

  “You liked that love pat?” said Black Ace, grinning ghoulishly. “Then have another.” And again his sharp-edged ring-gems hash-marked across Bruce’s face, almost bringing a scream from his lips.

  “Swab off his face,” commanded the chief, and another man dumped a bucket of cold water over Bruce’s head. Bruce stood there dripping and cold, but boiling inside. Yet he was helpless, a pawn at the mercy of this sadistic monster.

  “Now your lessons as a slave begin,” rasped Black Ace.

  “Kneel at my feet and call me ‘Master,’ as you will from now on. Kneel!”